Whatever . . . : Weenie Roast Makes Irvine Meadows a Proving Ground for Modern Rock's Next Roll

By MIKE BOEHM

June 14, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

IRVINE — The watchword for today’s Fifth Annual KROQ Weenie Roast & Luau at Irvine Meadows is “whatever.”

That’s “whatever” in the good, old-fashioned sense--as in “open-ended; indeterminate, teeming with choices.”

The biggest and potentially best Weenie Roast bill to date, this 11 1/2-hour festival with 19 bands (among them five emerging Southland acts playing on a satellite stage) reflects a period of flux on the modern-rock scene. It offers no clear focus for anyone eager to peg the genre to a prevailing style or trend. Instead, the spirit of the day, if everyone plays well, could drift back to the mid-’70s infancy of the “alternative” movement, when Patti Smith rose from the underground with a mantra that threw down a challenge: “Seize the possibilities.”

Here are the stylistic possibilities on the main stage as the influential KROQ conducts its annual daylong orgy of self-promotion and philanthropy. (The show will benefit AIDS and environmental charities.)

* Punk and grunge survivors. Modern rock went from a truly alternative music in the ‘80s to a mainstream commercial force in the ‘90s as first grunge, then pop-flavored punk captured a huge audience to become the genre’s signature sounds. But that wave broke last year, sinking the ratings of modern-rock stations, including KROQ. As the format adjusts--KROQ’s turn toward diversity has paid off so far in ‘97--aggressive guitar bands such as Weenie acts Foo Fighters, a Nirvana offshoot, and the Offspring, who helped power the punk boom of ‘94-’95, will seek a lasting place in the mix.

* Pop-rock traditionalism. Oasis, Blur, Radiohead and the Wallflowers all emphasize grabbing melody over raw power, putting them in a classic line stretching back to Beatles (for Oasis), the Band (for the Wallflowers), David Bowie (for Blur’s latest album) and U2’s Bono Hewson (for Radiohead’s commanding but sweet-voiced singer, Thom Yorke).

* Ska-influenced rock bands. Are they the flavor of the moment, as some sated observers believe? Or can ska, with its lightly skipping rhythms and bright, peppy outlook, be a permanent, splashy color in the fabric of modern rock? The blithely sarcastic Reel Big Fish and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who have a streak of social awareness, want to show some staying power.

* The old guard. No matter the trend, KROQ, which went on the air in the late 1970s, has had a soft spot for moodily brooding English rockers who play with grand, romantic sweep. Welcome back the Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen. And old-line punk warriors Social Distortion have been pummeling the airwaves at 106.7 since 1980.

* This year’s model. Is electronic dance music destined to become the pounding heart of modern rock? Nevermind the hype, here’s the Chemical Brothers.

* Novelty, thy name is KROQ. And the Squirrel Nut Zippers are among the most unlikely novelties to catch the ears of KROQ kids. It’s a snappy, musically adept retro act that looks back to the glamorous swing and vaudeville of Cab Calloway and Billie Holiday.

This assortment reflects the state of music today, said Gene Sandbloom, KROQ’s assistant program director. “You can’t define alternative music in one or two bands. It’s all over the place. This is exactly the way KROQ sounds right now. The trends can go in any of six or seven directions. . . . I’m more excited about music than in the one-dimensional period when you could identify the entire format with 10 band names.”

Such uncertainty must be nerve-racking for those charged with developing or preserving careers. But some music business veterans who also are longtime listeners applaud KROQ’s current sound.

“This reminds me of the 1979-80 days at KROQ, when you could hear AC / DC’s ‘Back in Black,’ ‘In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins and ‘Johnny Are You Queer?’ by Josie Cotton,” said Mike Jacobs, a veteran alternative-radio record promoter who now runs his own label, MCA affiliate Way Cool Music.

“Today you can hear Rage Against the Machine into the Cardigans into Squirrel Nut Zippers. How much more diversity can you have than that? It’s great. The kids are listening to the radio station to tell them what’s cool,” and Jacobs figures the eclectic menu could broaden the public’s musical palate.

Chris Martin, manager of Rule 62, a melodic but aggressive Orange County guitar band that will be vying for KROQ airplay when its album comes out next month on Maverick Records, likens the new modern-rock approach to the AM hits-radio he heard as a kid. “You might hear Bowie, the Supremes, Creedence, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper and a Led Zeppelin song in an hour. [Those acts] were able to build fan bases across the board.”

Sky Daniels, who covers alternative radio for the trade publication Radio & Records, said ’96 was brutal for the modern-rock format. “The grunge trend was a blessing and a curse. It [brought] the alternative notion to the guitar-loving rock mainstream and helped inflate the ratings of a lot of stations and the sales of artists.

“But it became an overplayed trend that pretty much exhausted itself. Six months ago, the ratings were down, and the panic was palpable. I was having to counsel young programmers to get them off the ledge.”

KROQ was among those hard hit. Having danced through the grunge and punk heyday of ‘94-95 with a 4.2% to 4.7% share of the radio market incorporating Los Angeles and Orange County, KROQ flopped to 2.9% at the end of ‘96--its first mark under 3% since pre-grunge 1989-90.

Daniels praised the station’s diversified sound as an antidote to the post-grunge blahs and as a shrewd strategy for outflanking newer modern-rock competitors in Southern California. KROQ’s ratings rose to 3.4% for the first quarter of ’97.

Daniels senses a new realization among modern-rock programmers: “ ‘We can be a thinking-man’s hit radio; we can appropriate a lot of genres; we can be inclusive.’ There’s a very large trend to [less raucous] artists like Paula Cole, Jewel and the Wallflowers. You’re seeing a very conscious effort by the format, of which KROQ is the acknowledged leader, to be very diverse. You can affect a lot of what’s acceptable to the market. You basically define the taste, as long as you don’t push it too far.”

KROQ’s Sandbloom says that he thinks the station’s listeners will give it room to stretch the genre.

“Fortunately, people who listen to alternative, modern rock, whatever you want to call it, have an open mind. So they might be willing to sit through a song they think is just pretty good.”

* The KROQ Weenie Roast & Luau, today at 12:30 p.m. at Irvine Meadows, 8800 Irvine Center Drive. Sold out. (714) 855-6111.

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Countdown to the Cure

Here is the tentative lineup for the main stage at today’s sold-out KROQ Weenie Roast at Irvine Meadows:

1:40 p.m.--Third Eye Blind

2:20--Reel Big Fish

3--Squirrel Nut Zippers

3:40--Radiohead

4:20--The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

5--Blur

5:40--The Wallflowers

6:20--Social Distortion